Founded as an extension of OPT Telescopes, Radian Telescopes produces top of line telescopes designed specifically with astrophotography in mind. Their premier telescope, the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is designed to be the definitive portable astrophotography telescope. This telescope is a wide field triplet apochromatic refractor telescope with crystal clear imaging capabilities and a sleek matte black and crimson design aesthetic.
Bounding onto the market in mid-2020, complete with a exhaustive marketing campaign, the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is designed for deep sky imaging and as such it is a dedicated astrophotography telescope, meaning that it cannot be used as a viewing telescope. However, if your focus is on astrophotography, this is an imaging telescope that will be sure to knock your socks off.
The telescope is sold exclusively through the OPT website, and is priced at $999.99. While certainly more expensive than a number of other imaging telescopes, the quality and design make up for the increased cost. If your budget allows, the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is certainly worth considering if you are looking to take your astrophotography to the next level.
Radian Raptor Additional Information and Purchase Direct from OPT
Lightweight with premium optics
The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope weighs in at an easy to manage four pounds, and is nine and a quarter inches long. This makes transport of the telescope an easy to manage feat, as it also helps to lower the load of any gear that would be needed to support it. This telescope is designed to function with a variety of mounts and tripods, and will fit any travel or tracking EQ mount. To ensure this, the telescope comes packaged with not one, but two dovetails— a six and a half inch universal Losmandy D-style dovetail and a four inch Vixen V-style dovetail. The inclusion of both of these dovetails provides a nice variety in the selection of mounts that you can use with this telescope, allowing you to repurpose an existing mount rather than necessitating the purchase of a new one.
The optical capabilities of this telescope are certainly something to write home about. Featuring a sixty-one millimeter aperture, a focal length of two-hundred and seventy-five millimeters, which allows for wide-field imaging, and a focal ratio of f/4.5, which enables shortened exposure time with long exposure detail, this telescope is optimized for astrophotography. The triple lens design features premium multi-coated glass that eliminates the worry of chromatic aberration and image reflection, and includes a built in dedicated corrector. This means that there is no need to purchase a field flattener, as the always-on design of the corrector uses all three lenses to correct camera sensors up to full-frame images, so your images will always come out with crystal clear focus and precision.
To capitalize on the lightweight and easy to transport design, the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope also comes with its own carrying backpack. The backpack features padded pockets guaranteed to protect your telescope, as well as pockets for a CMOS camera and a number of additional accessories as well. This backpack is designed explicitly to support your astrophotography sessions, and is a very useful addition for trekking to your shooting location.
Designed for Astrophotography
The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is marketed as an “astrophotography telescope made by astrophotographers” and the focusing system goes a long way in proving this. Featuring an durable and sturdy, factory tuned, two and a half inch dual-speed rack and pinion focuser, this telescope is able to deliver striking levels of precision. The ten to one gear ratio between the coarse and fine focus knobs is designed to make achieving pin-point focus easy for both the novice and experienced astrophotographer.
The telescope can also be purchased with the Radian Electronic Focuser Upgrade for an additional $499, or the upgrade can be purchased separately. Utilizing a high-resolution stepper motor, the Radian Electronic Focuser allows you to automate the focusing of your telescope through your laptop setup, taking the guesswork and labor out of your imaging and ensuring perfect focus with every shot.
To ensure protection from the elements, the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope includes a built in dew shield. Simply extend the shield so that water droplets don’t form on the objective lens. The telescope also comes with dust caps to protect the lenses when not in use during transport or storage.
The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope also comes with an integrated filter vault, simplifying the process of changing your filters and removing the need to purchase a filter wheel or filter drawer. It also eliminates the need to configure back focus, as the filter vault is built directly into the telescope’s included adaptors. Not only does this save you time and convenience, it also eliminates the need for additional purchases.
On top of this, the telescope also comes with a t-ring adaptor that is directly integrated into the optical tube’s design. With this industry standard M48 thread size you can easily attach either your DSLR, CCD, or CMOS camera directly to the telescope to capture a stunning image of any deep space celestial object you desire. The t-adaptor is also compatible with smaller M42 thread sizes when used with the adaptors that come with most CCD cameras.
Upgraded tube rings
The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope also features a unique and innovative upgrade to the standard tube ring design with the Radian Modular Hex Rings. These hexagonal rings are designed to eliminate the problem of snagging your equipment cables as you might with the protruding connectors and tightening screws of traditional tube rings via a series of integrated cable channels that all of your cables can be fed into, allowing for organized and easy to manage cable routing. The hexagonal rings are also built with a series of mounting holes on all six sides. These allow you to attach your accessories anywhere on the ring, saving both time and trouble.
Features and specifications
- The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is a wide field triplet apochromatic refractor designed explicitly for astrophotography
- The telescope is lightweight and portable, weighing in at only 4 pounds
- The 61mm aperture, along with the 275 mm Focal Length, and f/4.5 Focal Ratio allow for superb and sharp wide field imaging of deep sky objects
- High quality triple lens design features premium multi-coated glass that eliminates the worry of chromatic aberration and image reflection
- Comes with a built in industry standard M45 T-adaptor that attaches the telescope directly to your DSLR, CCD, or CMOS camera
- Includes a built in dedicated corrector, removing the need to purchase a field flattener guaranteeing crystal clear focus and precision
- Comes with two dovetails— a six and a half inch universal Losmandy D-style dovetail and a four inch Vixen V-style dovetail—ensuring compatibility with a variety of mounts
- Innovative Radian Hex Rings allow for organized cable management and accessory attachment
- Comes with built in extendable dew shield
- Comes with a carrying backpack with a number of padded pockets to protect your telescope, camera, and accessories
- The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope comes with additional accessories including 10:1 factory-tuned rack & pinion focuser, a 2″ Filter Vault, and a 360˚ rotator
Radian Raptor Additional Information and Purchase Direct from OPT
User impressions
The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is sold exclusively through OTP’s website, where it holds a consumer rating of 4.6/5. As a relatively new telescope, reviews are limited, with only twenty five at the time of this publication.
So far, users are impressed with this astrophotography telescope. User say that the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is a “phenomenal little scope” that is also “easy to use for a beginner.” Reviewers agree that the telescope is “a very nice quality build, as are the hex rings and mounting plates” and that this is a “fun scope, [that] looks good, images really well, and altogether that makes it worth the premium paid.”
The “images produced are clean and crisp” as the telescope takes “excellent wide field images” that are so sharp that can be “enlarged and cropped” and still produce stunning results.
Users report that this telescope has been consistently “exceeding [their] expectations,” and that they are “very pleased with the results and would highly recommend this wide field, fast refractor” to anyone looking to break into astrophotography. For this purpose, “this telescope is as close to perfect as it can get.” Thanks to the built in T-adaptor, users find that their camera “attaches to the telescope securely without worry of coming off during telescope movement.” Users find that “focusing is super easy and smooth” even without the Radian Electronic Focuser Upgrade, and that the lens quality is “very good with little to no chromatic aberration.”
The addition of the padded travel backpack also has users pleased. They find that the backpack “is perfect, [with] plenty of room and slots for [your] camera, telescope and accessories. Once packed, all the cables, computer, filters, guide scope, guide camera, imaging camera, camera controller, bubble level and note pad fit in this backpack.” The travel backpack is the perfect solution for keeping your gear organized when venturing into the field for a long night’s shoot.
Of course, as with any product, especially one that is the first product of a newly launched brand, there were some criticisms of the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope.
Users found themselves frustrated that the telescope was not as “out if the box ready as it claimed” and many users found themselves taking multiple “trips to the hardware store” and attempting “lots of iterations to get things mounted” properly. This seems to be because “while the rings are versatile, they don’t easily work with all dovetail clamps due to different screw sizes” and that “the V-Style dovetail is so short it’s kind of useless.” Users wish that the designers had supplied a “longer v style dovetail” as “it would definitely help with balancing” since the included four inch dovetail is “too short to find balance.”
Users also had troubled with the integrated Filter Vault, which “is nice to have”, but difficult to use as the “Filter vault is a little tight” and much “harder to use if you have large fingers.” However, “once the filter is dropped in the spot it is easy to screw in place.” Users also found that the “dew cap is little shallow” and that the “felt strips [of the dust caps] are little [too] thin to keep the cap secure.” Another small gripe that many users found difficult was the lack of additional accessories when compared to other telescopes, however, as the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope contains a number of integrated accessories that customers don’t get the experience of handling separately, this easily could be considered illusory.
Radian Raptor Additional Information and Purchase Direct from OPT
To summarize, the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope, priced at $999.99, is a top of the line triplet astrophotography telescope that is suited for both imaging veterans and beginners alike. While the telescope is a bit pricier than similarly branded telescopes, this scope makes up for it with a number of integrated features, such as a built in dew-shield, built in M45 T-adaptor, built in Field Flattener, and a built in Filter Vault. The Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope is lightweight and portable, thanks to it’s easy to manage four pound weight and the included padded backpack that can fit the telescope and quite a large number of accessories. The telescope also shows off its new and innovative take on tube rings with the Radian Hex Rings, which allow for organized cable management and accessory attachment. While the telescope has a few minor faults, such as the included V-Style Dovetail being too short to manage the telescope and accessories for some users, and the integrated Filter Vault seemingly only easy to use for those with small and dexterous hands, none of these effect the actual performance of the telescope, which delivers sharp, clear, and impressive images as promised.
Comparable telescopes
While we endorse the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope, you might also consider the following products:
- Sky-Watcher EvoStar 72 72mm APO Refractor Telescope
- William Optics RedCat 51LX APO Refractor Telescope
- SharpStar 61 EDPH II APO Refractor Telescope
Additional accessories
Here are some accessory suggestions that will improve your experience with the Radian Raptor 61 Imaging Apochromatic Telescope:
- Radian Telescopes Raptor 61 Electronic Focuser Upgrade
- William Optics Bahtinov Mask for Telescope Dew Shield
- Radian Telescopes Quick-Release Carbon Fiber Tripod
